Man-Powered Flight: History and Development

It is a topic of great interest that has fascinated academics, engineers, researchers, adventure seekers and laymen in their pursuit of inventiveness. As early as 67 A.D., Imon the magician attempted a Man-Powered Flight in front of Roman Emperor Nero. In China, similar endeavours were made in the next few hundred years without real progress. An Andalusian Arab Abul Qasim ibn Farnas lost his life in 875 A.D. by jumping off a high mountain. Leonardo da Vinci designed an Ornithopter with two wings in 1487 and then in 1487, Senecio of Nuremberg broke his arms in a Man-Powered Flight incident. In 1501, an Italian John Damian came to Scotland to demonstrate his jump from Sterling Castle in which he badly injured his thigh bones. Moreover, John Wilkins of Trinity College Cambridge documented some categories of flying that included Spirits or Angles and Flying Chariot in 1648 whereas Robert Hooke made flying models in 1655. A French Locksmith used his skills and imagination to make V-shaped blades and paddles. In 1768, Friar Cyprian from Hungary built a Man-Powered machine with wings attached to arms and straps tied to legs as he tried to lift himself into the air. Another experiment was made by Abbe Desforges in 1772 and a Belgian Shoemaker Vincent de Groof constructed an ornithopter using his arms for wing flapping. His experiment in London on 29 June 1874 proved fatal. In the USA, R.J Spalding made a machine with two wings and a tail-like bird in 1889. It is worth remembering July 1868, Crystal Palace London shows exhibited many different models of Man-Powered Flight. Otto Lilienthal a German Ornithopter designer produced a comprehensive work on Bird Aerodynamics in 1889. He made wings tied to hoops each of the two was fastened around the chest and waste respectively. It was not until 1961 when David Williams, Ann Marsden and Alan Lassiere of Southampton University, England designed and built human-powered aircraft. This single-seat plan was made of plywood, balsa and aluminium and covered in Nylon. On 9 November 1961, the pilot Derek Piggot lifted it 1.8 meters above the ground and travelled for 64 meters. Todd Reichert from Canada built a snowbird using carbon fibre, balsa and foam which covered 145 meters and stayed above the ground for just 20 seconds. The man-powered plane was also known as a Pedal-powered flying machine. This has now turned into a sporting and prize-winning hobby. A competition was held at Lasham Gliding Society, London in 2012 in which five such planes including Butterfly and Airglow took part. Further developments have been made in the U.K. USA and Australia during the last few decades and the distance covered has been greatly increased.